


under the lights (hard to find)

by orphan_account



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Gen, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, drabble(ish), snafu and stella bond over being gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 12:29:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11290755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Snfau wants her to take his hand, but not in the way she thinks—and there’s no way he can say that here in a place like this in front of all these people.





	under the lights (hard to find)

**Author's Note:**

> maddie (@ralphspina) and i were [talking](https://mjolll.tumblr.com/post/162204009947/talking-about-sapphic-hbo-war-ladies-not-specific) and then i wrote this
> 
> please join me in doing stuff for wlw hbo war ships (@mjolll)
> 
> sorry for any typos
> 
> title from [our hell by emily haines and the soft skeleton](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwMj8pGpIKE)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The marines are bone-tired when they set foot on Australian soil after months of nothing but mud, rifle oil, and death. But then it’s a lot like waking up when they stow their shit and leave the MPs in the stadium behind in favor of stepping out onto the paved streets of a civilized city that succeeds in reminding the men of home.

Burgie, Jay, and Snafu break off from K Company with some of the guys and manage to squeeze into a bar on the corner that’s already packed full but with a warmth that could be mistaken for home with the mixture of cigarette smoke, low murmuring, and loud hoots sinking into the sound of clinking glasses and sloshing drinks. Snafu’s floating by the time the men are whistling at some of the girls on the other side of the bar. He catches the eye of a broad who just finished rolling her eyes at them and smiles, once, no teeth—doesn’t mean a bit of it; his heart’s not in it—but then he’s being shoved across the bar floor and up against the counter the broad’s sitting at.

The words that come out of his mouth are slurred, but practiced; he recognizes the continued disinterest lying in plain view on her face, but he can feel eyes burning into his back—like he’s back on the fuckin’ beach—and he’s holding out his arm all gentlemen-like—his ma would’a been so proud to see him acting so damn proper—and he knows that, if she doesn’t take it, it won’t matter, but if she does, they’ll lay off him till the next time they land somewhere packed with civilians like this.

Snfau wants her to take his hand, but not in the way she thinks—and there’s no way he can say that here in a place like this in front of all these people.

The broad considers him, briefly, before smiling tightly at him—god, he knows that look of reluctance, he _gets it_ —standing up, and taking his arm. The friends they leave behind make a racket as they walk out of the bar together into the cool night, where the smoke doesn’t choke him and the feeling of all those pairs of eyes on him has been killed down to only one.

“Listen,” he says, stopping on the sidewalk once they’ve walked a-ways in awkward silence, “I wouldln’t’a done that if—” he dimly recalls doing this in New Orleans, turning to the girl on his arm and trying to explain that he wasn’t born fit to fall in love with any broad in the world. She watches him carefully as he picks his words slowly and carefully, accent molding them into something mumbled that comes out a lot like, “I wasn’t gon’ ask you nothin’,” and holds up his hands in surrender.

She just keeps looking at him. Considering.

“Jus’ needed to get them off,” he says. It’s been too long since he did this. He’s fallen out of sync with old habits he let decay when he went off to war and now he’s finding he actually wants company, wants someone to look at him and see him and understand—

“Okay,” she says slowly. “And you are…?”

“Merriel Shelton.”

“Merriel?” she echoes, smiling a little. “Stella.”

“Look, Stel’—” His accent mutes the vowel as he tries to find some way to do. Eventually, he gives up and says, “’s not like that.”

She might get him shot. She—

Then her expression softens, her eyes warm up, and relief comes over her like a wave over the beach. But there’s no blood in the frothing water here, nothing but something that says, _I think I understand_.

Snafu offers her his arm again. She takes it, and his shoulders become lax, the tension bleeding out of him like she took a stopper out of a wound, and says, “where do you want to go, Merriel Shelton?”

His given name out in the open air is strange to him after so many months of hearing nothing but _Shelton_ and _Snaf_.

“You pick, boo.”

Cautiously, Stella says, “I have—a friend. We can go to her place for a while.” Awkwardly: “if you’d like.”

There’s something in her face that twinges when she says _friend_. It’s barely there, hardly even a flicker to anyone who wasn’t praying it was there, but Snafu sees it and recognizes it and knows that there’s _love_ in the press of her mouth and the way eyes grow a bit sad once she’s said it.

He smiles, a bit sly, and says, “sounds good t’me,” and then they’re walking off, a conversation pulling a cord between them, tying their index fingers together with hearts that are beating drums to a similar tune.

There is no word, he thinks, no possible, God-given word in French, English, or any tongue that can describe that kind of relief he’s found when he knows he’s in good company—in the kind of company that can peer into his heart, nod, and understand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When he gets back later that night, the boys jeer and ask him, "did ya meet a nice girl, Shelton?"

Snafu just smirks, says more honestly than he means, "yeah," and ends up telling them to shut the fuck up as he falls into his bunk.

Yeah. He did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
